Sepulchre (50 page)
She was struggling to keep her eyes open. Slowly, Meredith felt herself drifting away from Hal. The silver moon made her progress across the black Midi sky. Below in the valley, the bell tolled the passing of the hours.
In her dream, Meredith was sitting at the piano at the foot of the stairs. The chill of the keys and the melody were familiar beneath her fingers. She was playing Louisa's signature piece, better than she had ever played it before, sweet and yet haunting.
Then the piano vanished and she was walking along a narrow and empty corridor. There was a patch of light at the end and a set of stone stairs, dipped and worn away in the centre by the passage of feet and time. She turned to go, but found herself always standing in the same place. It was somewhere within the Domaine de la Cade, she knew, but not a part of the house or grounds she recognised.
The light, a perfect square, was coming from a gas jet on the wall, which hissed and spat at her as she passed. Facing her at the top of the steps was an old and dusty tapestry of a hunt. She stared a moment at the cruel expressions of the men, the smears of red blood on their spears. Except, as she looked with her dream eyes, she realised it was not an animal they were hunting. Not a bear, not a wild boar, not a wolf. Instead, a black creature, standing on two legs with cloven feet, an expression of rage on its almost human features. A demon, his claws tipped red.
In her bed, Meredith moaned and shifted position as her dreaming hands, both weighed and weightless, pushed at an old wooden door. There was a carpet of silver dust on the ground, glinting in the moonlight or the halo from the gaslight.
The air was still. At the same time, the room wasn't damp or cold like a space left empty. Time jumped forward. Now Meredith could hear the piano again, except this time distorted. Like the sound of a fairground or a carousel, menacing and sinister.
She pushed open the door. Stepped up over the stone step. No birds flew up, there was no whispering of voices, hidden, behind the door. Now she was standing inside some kind of chapel. High ceilings, flagstone floors, an altar and stained-glass windows. Paintings covering the walls, immediately recognisable as the characters from the cards. A sepulchre. It was utterly silent. Nothing but the echo of her footsteps disturbed the hush. And yet, little by little, the air began to whisper. She could hear voices, noises in the darkness. At least, voices behind the silence. And singing.
Meredith kept walking until she arrived before the altar, at a point equally placed between each of the four windows set inside the octagonal wall. She was standing now inside a square, marked in black upon the stone floor. Around it, letters inscribed upon the ground. Help me.
Someone was there. In the darkness and the silence, something was moving. Meredith felt the space around her shrinking, fold in upon itself. She could see nothing, yet she knew she was there. A living, breathing presence, in the fabric of the air. And she knew she had seen her before -beneath the bridge, on the road, at the foot of her bed. Air, water, fire and now earth. The four suits of the Tarot, containing within them all the possibilities.
Meredith felt herself falling, down into a place of stillness and peace. She was not afraid. She was no longer herself, but instead standing outside, looking in. And, clear in the room now, she heard her own sleeping voice speak calmly out. 'Leonie?'
It seemed to Meredith now that there was a different quality in the darkness around the shrouded figure, a movement of the air, almost like a wind. At the foot of the bed, the figure gave a slight movement of her head. Long copper curls, colour without substance, unveiled as the hood fell from her hair. Skin translucent. Green eyes, although transparent. Form without substance. A long black dress beneath the cloak. Shape without form. I am Leonie.
There was a rushing of air, a fracturing of the light, a shimmering of something - someone withdrawing. The atmosphere was different again now. There was a threat in the darkness, which Léonie had held at bay. But the gentle presence of the ghost had vanished, replaced by something destructive. A malevolence. It was now oppressively cold, pushing in upon Meredith. Like an early morning mist at sea, the sharp tang of salt and fish and smoke. She was back in the sepulchre. She felt the need to run, although she did not know what from. She felt herself edging towards the door.
There was something behind her. A black figure or some kind of creature. Meredith could almost feel its breath on the back of her neck, puffs of white clouds in the frigid air. But the stone nave was shrinking. The wooden door was getting smaller and more distant.
Something was snapping at her heels, gaining speed in the shadows, getting ready to leap. Meredith started to run, fear giving power to her shaking legs. Her sneakers were skidding, sliding, on the flagstone floor. Always behind her, the breathing.
She threw herself at the door, feeling her shoulder crashing into the frame, sending pain ricocheting down her arm. The creature was right behind, the bristling of its fur, the stench of iron and blood, melting into her skin, the surface of her scalp and the soles of her feet. She fumbled at the latch, rattling, tugging, jerking it towards her, but it wouldn't open.
She started to bang on the door, trying not to look over her shoulder, trying not to be caught in the gaze of its blue, hideous eyes. She could feel the silence deepen around her. Could feel its malevolent arms coming down around her neck, wet and cold and rough. The smell of the sea, dragging her down into its fatal depths.
Meredith! Meredith. It's all right. You're safe, it's all right.' She woke with a massive jolt that left her gasping for breath. Every muscle in her body was alert, every nerve screaming. The cotton sheets were tangled and mussed. Her fingers were locked rigid. For a moment she felt subsumed by a devouring anger, as if the rage of the creature had forced its way down through the surface of her skin.
Meredith looked around the room, as if expecting at any moment someone to step out of the shadows. At the same time, she knew the dream had passed. Slowly, she let Hal take her in his arms. She felt the warmth and the strength of him holding her closer, holding her safe, tight against his chest. She could feel the bones of her rib-cage as they rose and fell, rose and fell.
Gradually, beneath the repetitive and gentle motion of Hal's hand, the terror faded away. Her eyelids became heavy, her arms and legs and body too, as the warmth and feeling came back.
Clouds had covered the moon and it was completely dark. The lovers, learning to know one another, fell back to sleep in each other's arms, shrouded in the deep blue of early morning before the day comes.
PART IX
Wishing to feel the fresh air on her face, she dressed quickly and let herself out into the early morning. Evidence of yesterday's storm was all around. Broken branches, leaves sent flying into spirals by the agitating wind. Everything was quite still now and the pink dawn sky was clear. But in the distance, over the Pyrenees, a grey bank of storm clouds, which threatened more bad weather to come.
Léonie took a turn around the lake, pausing a while on the small promontory that overlooked the choppy waters, then walked slowly back towards the house across the lawns. The hem of her skirts glistened with the dew. Her feet left barely an imprint on the wet grass.
She walked around to the front door, which she had left unbolted when she had slipped out, then stepped into the hall. She stamped her boots on the rough-haired mat. Then she pushed the hood from her face, unhooked the clasp, and hung her cloak back on the metal hook from which she had taken it earlier.
As she walked across the red and black tiles towards the dining room, she realised that she hoped Anatole had not yet descended for breakfast. Although she worried for Isolde's health, Léonie was still sulking about their headlong and premature departure from Carcassonne the previous evening, and did not wish to be obliged to be civil to her brother.
Léonie walked round to take her customary seat on the far side of the long oval table, so that she was facing the door.
One thought preyed upon her mind. That if the ill weather was continuing in Carcassonne without respite, then the patron of the hotel might be unable to deliver her letter to Victor Constant in the Square Gambetta. Or indeed that, due to the torrential rain, the concert would have been cancelled. She felt helpless and thoroughly frustrated at the realisation that she had no way of being certain whether or not Monsieur Constant had received her communication.
'No, Madomaisèla. You are the first.' 'And my aunt? Is she recovered after last evening?' Marieta paused, then dropped her voice, as if confiding a great secret. 'Do you not know, Madomaisèla? Madama was taken that bad in the night that Sénher Anatole was obliged to send to town for the doctor.'
Marieta nodded. 'That Madama had caught a chill, which was threatening to develop into something worse. He gave her a powder to bring down the fever. He stayed with her, your brother too, all night.' 'What is the diagnosis now?'
Léonie felt dreadful. She was guilty about her previous uncharitable thoughts and that she had somehow slept through the night without having the first idea of the crisis taking place elsewhere in the house. Her stomach was full of knots, like a ball of thread tangled and twisted out of shape. She doubted that she would be able to let even the smallest morsel pass her lips.
However, when Marieta returned and placed in front of her a plate of salted mountain bacon, fresh eggs from the pullets, and warm white bread with a turned roll of churned butter, she felt she might manage a little.
She ate in silence, her thoughts flipping backwards and forwards like a fish thrown upon the riverbank, first worrying about her aunt's health, then more pleasurable thoughts of Monsieur Constant, then back to Isolde. She heard the sound of footsteps crossing the hall. Tossing her napkin to the table, she leapt to her feet and ran to the door, coming face to face with Anatole in the hall.